Sarah Marcus is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi.

Georgian homage to The Simpsons: The Samsonadzes

It looks like The Simpsons, its theme music sounds a little like that of The Simpsons, but the creator of Georgia’s new hit cartoon series, The Samsonadzes (watch a clip here), emphatically denies that the show is a rip-off of the famous US broadcast.

‘The Samsonadzes is a native Georgian serial about a Georgian family,’ says Shalva Ramishvili, creator and director of the cartoon.

He said he wanted to send a message to fans of The Simpsons.

‘I want to say to Simpsons fans, please do not think that our show is an imitation or a rip off of The Simpsons. Yes of course it was an inspiration for us, but the Samsonadzes is not a copy,’ he explained.

That The Samsonadzes, which is riding high in national television ratings, was inspired by the US show is clear in the striking similarities between the two serials.

Like The Simpsons, the Samsonadzes recounts the trials and tribulations of an ordinary family – father Gela, mother Dodo, son Gia and daughter Shorena. Like their US counterparts, the Samsonadzes are portly and yellow. The Simpsons are a dysfunctional family, Ramishvili describes the Samsonadzes as ‘chaotic’.

Georgian people can relate to the Samsonadze family, says Ramishvili, because the cartoon deals with social and other themes relevant to Georgian life.

The Simpsons is no stranger to controversy, and although The Samsonadzes is to focus more on social than political themes, Ramishvili said that the latter would probably feature in some episodes.

He did not rule out the inclusion of Georgia’s controversial and somewhat beleaguered president, Mikheil Saakashvili, saying he might feature depending on ‘the context’.

The Samsonadzes has already played host to cartoon versions of Russian leaders Vladimir Putin -who is shown sending a spy to Georgia by way of giving him a kick in the rear end which sends him rocketing into the sky above the Kremlin and onwards to the land that is such a thorn in Putin's side - and Dmitri Medvedev, but Ramishvili said this was not a political move.

‘Having the Russian leaders on the show was like fulfilling a civic duty. The whole world is interested in the relationship between Russia and Georgia and we all know what Russia did in Georgia during the war [of August 2008],’ he said.

The show may claim to be largely apolitical, but Ramishvili himself is an old hand at political satire. In the 1990s he created a cartoon series which lampooned the corrupt regime of Georgia’s then president, Eduard Shevardnadze – who was of course ousted by Saakashvili in 2003’s Rose Revolution.